Silk on Silk on Silk
by SufferBravely
Summary: What if Emperor had said 'Yes' to her, just once? Seladon shares an uncomfortable meal at the Skesis table.


It was not the first time she had been invited to sit at the dining table, but it was the first that she had accepted.

She hid beneath her crown, her head tipped so that the spirals of deep black claw and tooth could be presented to the world. Her eyes cast downwards, shadowed into dark slits beneath her heavy lashes. There was no reason for her to act this way - downtrodden, ashamed, a poor girl overwhelmed by what was only her duty - these were guises that had long been exorcised from her body. However, at this dinner table... all the rules she had once learned were turned on their head. It was not that she was afraid, she told herself, it was that this posture was the one expected of her.

Shrieking filled her ears from all sides. A cacophony that would never have been permitted at her mother's- no, the previous All Maudra's - no, that turncoat's court. Feculent language spewed from mouths suited to the sewer - but this was no sewer, this was the highest table in all the land. And no matter what she thought of it, it was their right to behave in whatever way they so desired. In whatever way he permitted.

And he sat by her side. She saw only his fingers - flexing on the table, curling into a fist and banging with joviality at some joke or another, occasionally picking at food, though, it seemed his appetite was quite restrained. Not unlike hers, she supposed - as she stared back down at her meagre pickings of some fruit that the Gourmand had not bothered to name.

But as much as he laughed - his voice just one dark shadow cast in a sea of confusing shapes - she would not engage in such frivolities. No, not at this occasion - her head kept so perfectly still, her body sitting on a chair that swayed embarrassingly as it perched precariously on whatever thick tomes the Scroll Keeper resentfully parted with. No, on this outing, she would keep herself in... her place. Out of the conversation, not drawing attention to herself, holding herself with grace and... dignity, a precious, prized ornament - the very best role she could hope for.

And as her chest swelled at the thought, at the hope that - yes, she could do this, that this - all of this - would be worth it in the end... the shrieking grew louder, his body began to sway, long fingers tipped with dinner claws unfurling - excitement visible in the tremble of his finger. She dared cast a glance upwards, and to her surprise and with gasp only barley contained in her throat, his face loomed down towards her. His expression was unreadable, but then - the tremble in his fingers, the way his face loomed closer...

"Yes, bring the Princess some!"

His laughter - sharp, yapping, raspy - imprinted on her face, and she failed to see the humour in any of this. Still, her face contorted pleasantly, shaped itself just as it was meant to, and she said,"Of course, anything you give me is received with my humblest gratitude. This fruit, it is..." She trailed off as he stopped paying attention to her, his silver of his beak a slash in the air as a cry of protest rose from the other end of the table.

"We can't waste precious essence on a GELFLING!"

She followed the direction of his beak - pointing like a silver arrow, like a knife - straight towards General. The other Skesis chattered and murmured, though none seemed to make up their mind enough to agree.

"Well... if it is truly precious, my most pragmatic Emperor, then ... There is no need to spare such resource on me..."

Her voice pined, her eyes cast sliding back to him. General... her guts squirmed, she supposed she should be thankful to him, no matter his thoughts on her. He was the reason she took this chair so young, after all.

She held her breath as well as her tongue. After all, she had been made more than used to this kind of humiliation. How often had mother simply sat back and let officials knit-pick at her posture, tease her awkward wording - or worse, share in the joke with her, swap a gaze or a smile of held-back, patronising laughter whenever she braved herself enough to speak her tongue.

But this was not her mother's court.

"This is not any Gelfling, General. She is the All Maudra," Emperor laughed and she felt the way his tongue played with her title, like it was a plaything in his mouth. "An All Maudra who plays Skesis, who sits at our table, who sits by my side."

General snorted, though she could only imagine the state of his face. The Skesis shuffled in their seats, the laughter that had once infected the air now turned soured and heavy. "But, Emperor..." Scientist remarked - his voice even dimmer as it scratched from the far-side of the table. "We do not know the effects it would have on her body - she is of Thra, so..." They... was he really insisting...? Her gaze widened, then - eyes wide like hope but in slipped fear. The rumours were true, then. They drained Gelfling, and... "You, afraid of an experiment, Scientist?"

Emperor guffawed, his fingers now tapping on the table.

They drained Gelfling and drank their essence. This much was true. This much was true, but...

"No, Emperor - I..."

"It is wasted on her! Wouldn't it be worse if it worked?" General boomed, and Emperor's gaze once again slit the air.

Yes. They drained them, but what other dark secrets did she not know? What secrets did the commoners only dream of, while they wore their taxed jewels round their necks, wedding veils round their heads?

"... Worse?"

She heard the bite in his voice, saw the cold narrowing his eye.

"She may rule a hundred trine, a thousand with me!"

(She would see him, later, and know this could not be true. Not for her own body, that felt more alive than it had ever been - but because she heard him in the dead of night, retching. He thought he was alone in this - she made sure of that, not because she was afraid of his embarrassment, but because she knew what it was like to be caught by a pitiful gaze when she was busy trying to ebb out her soul into the night, red eyed and filled with sorrow meant only for herself. He was quiet, so forcibly quiet, in his wheezing, in his weeping.)The Skesis laughed at this, howling, even. General baulked, feathers on his head flailing, but as he leaned his weight over the table, mouth open and prepared to speak - Emperor rose to his full height, a black mass of silk on silk rising skyward. "Stop! No more of this!" The room went silent. "Bring. The Princess. Essence. NOW."She hid her head again as Scientist scrambled out of the room, his heavy feet and cloth scraping along the floor. He..He was embarrassing himself. For her?

Spoke of a - what did he mean, a hundred trine, a thousand? Her face flushed - was it so that she could be his joke, his talking point, his gilded toy forever?

(Later, she would learn just what she represented. When he held her face in his gnarled hands, his skin full of potholes that her soft flesh tried to fill, when he gazed at her a whitehot gaze she learned was full of jealousy. How he wanted her skin, all that skin, all that youthful beauty. Before he would drag her down into silks upon silks upon silks, an undulating sea of fabric where she could finally - finally - slip free and let loose herself.)

Of course, he had lifespans upon lifespans braided into his layers, into his skin. Those clothes he wore.. they must have dwarfed her lifespan. And though she had been present to the forging of her own crown - he, too, must have been for his - crafted from materials so rare she was not even sure it existed in the earth anymore. That was what Brea had taught her, after all... among many things, none of which really mattered here. A thousand trine... she was nothing but a blip, a scratch of chalk on a long, dark blackboard. How many memories did he have coiled in the curves of his mind? How many versions of her - terrified, scared, bitter little girls did he keep in there?"Get out." He snapped, sitting down and running nail over nail, patiently waiting as General struggled to get out of his seat. "GO!" None, of course.

Because those would not be worth remembering. And he did not see her as a terrified, scared, bitter little girl.

He saw her as a Princess.

She smiled at him, her gaze defiant through her own mixed emotions.

He gazed back at her, eyes narrowing into what might have been a smile.

He'd fought for her.

Her gaze lifted, and she gazed round that table. Every Skesis refused to meet her eyes - cowered away from it, in fact. Glancing between themselves, towards Emperor. Her smile split into the thinnest of grins.

Yes.

This was power she'd never had. Power her mother had never given her.

He lifted a hand and placed it, heavy, on her head.

She closed her eyes as he lifted the glass to her mouth, fingers in her hair straining to keep her in place. But he did not have to restrain her. He did not have to force her.

"Drink."

She slid her eyes open as the liquid bubbled at her lips, as his command rippled through her skin.

And drank.


End file.
